Saturday, August 11, 2012

Bomber Pilot



Welcome to Air Force Week here at OPOD. We will be looking at pictures from the Air Force, and the earlier Army Air Corps. Today's picture shows a Bomber Pilot from World War II. The picture was taken in 1942. The man flew the YN-17 Bomber.

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9 comments:

  1. A big "THANK YOU" to all that served in our Armed Forces.

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  3. YN-17? What's that? By 1942 the B-17 was already the B-17 and the early experimental variant of the aircraft was the XB-17. I can't find any reference to a YN-17. I wonder if the original caption had a typographical error? "Y" was also used for experimental at that time, but I'm unaware of "N" being used. I wonder of the caption writer messed up an OWI photographer's hand written caption, and was still only familiar with the old YB-17 designation, but not well familiar with it.

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  5. Alfred Palmer (or the War Department) may have gotten the wrong caption either accidentally or purposely. There was a YN-17 ship designation for the US Navy, for a net layer ship.

    But perhaps the caption was deliberate propaganda to make the German army think a new 'huge bomber' variant of the B-17 was going to begin attacking them soon.

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  6. In the Winter 2011 issue of "American Heritage" magazine, there is an article about Eugene Ely, who was the first person to take off from a ship, on November 14, 1910. On January 18, 1911 he landed on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania, using a jury-rigged tailhook system because early planes had no brakes or ground steering gear. He wore a football helmet and some bicycle innertubes wrapped around his chest as a life preserver. With modifications, the tailhook system he devised is still used today.

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  7. This will be a great week! They have a cool display of authentic WW2 bomber jackets at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The jackets were decorated with colorful embroidery by their owners with unit insignias and stuff just like they painted the nose art on the planes. Great stuff.

    I served in the AF 1989-93. My job was putting bombs on B-52s.

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  8. I wore a kids WW II bomber jacket & hat my mom bought me during that time. I wanted to keep it "BUT" for a scout project made it into a wall skin that I put nick-nacks, do-ditty stuff on as a kid would. Merit badges, photo pins, ribbons, etc...

    Wish now I'd kepted it as a leather jacket. Few years ago did see some (salvageable) at a church/lawn sale w/ribbons/badges,insignias still on. Went back to get... GONE !!! Dayum...

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  9. What a beautiful photograph!

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